Beware of judging a book by its title. Had I listened to my inner book snob, I would not have read Heidi Cullinan’s beautiful romance The Professor’s Green Card Marriage. I had passed over the novel a few times because I believed the clunky title to be too literal and uninspired for my tastes. But,…
These Ghosts are Family is a spellbinding, beautifully written story about the way generational trauma can harm, form or save a person – and how the ghosts of the past always loom over one’s shoulder. Stanford Solomon is facing down the end of his life with a heavy sense of responsibility. His beloved wife Adele…
The Light After the War is the author’s first novel under the name Anita Abriel although she has been published previously as Anita Hughes. Based on her mother’s life, the book is the story of two young Jewish-Hungarian women who miraculously survived the purges of WWII and in the aftermath struggle to build lives for…
There’s just something about ice skating stories. Calinda Valerio and Ramirez Diaz-Tan met a decade earlier, when they were both regulars at the same Manila rink, she for figure skating, he for hockey. Calinda was twenty, but her parents demanded she not date, lest dating, or marriage, or pregnancy, interfere with her skating career (a…
Promise Me a Dream is a gentle, tender story about two people coming together at a turbulent time in American history. Unsparing when discussing racial violence, it also tells a lovely story of community and first true love. And while I had a couple of issues with the stiffness of its prose, overall it is…
If you look past the intentionally laugh inducing title, Nico Rosso’s historical romance novella Unsolicited Duke Pic actually has a lot of substance and interesting plot ideas; enough that I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with the end result. When Thomas Halsey, Duke of Lighthorn, loses a bet, he’s required to have a picture of…
Adriana Herrera’s Dreamers, a series about a group of four Afro-Latinx friends who live and work in and around New York, seems to get better and better with each book. American Love Story is the third instalment and I loved it. It’s complex and romantic while remaining grounded in reality; the two leads are principled men…
Camilo, or Milo, is a social worker with a heart of solid gold and a sass factor of eleven, while Tom is a billionaire funding a new project through Milo’s agency. Before that relationship is established, though, they happen to have an… er… intimate encounter at a fundraiser and neither can get the other off…
Searching for Sylvie Lee, the beautiful, mesmerizing new novel by Jean Kwok, has been named a ‘Most Anticipated’ book by Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, and a host of other publications. I’ve been anticipating it since I finished her excellent Mambo in Chinatown in 2014. While this story doesn’t quite match the romantic, effervescent charm of…
Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions – like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better, that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships,…
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